


We’re all here to die anyway

by AutumnLeavesSoaring



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hospital, Human!Theo, M/M, No Dread Doctors, Post Season 4, Strangers to Lovers, Them with a Twist, Thiam Half Birthday 2018, werewolf!liam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnLeavesSoaring/pseuds/AutumnLeavesSoaring
Summary: Liam’s visiting his dad at the hospital when he bumps into the most infuriating person on earth; a person he can’t seem to get out of his head. But it’s just because he wants to punch him, right?Theo’s not got long left to live. He’s done making apologies. He’s gonna do whatever the hell he wants to do.Post season 4, where there are no Dread Doctors and the supernatural is the least of their worries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Them With A Twist day of the Thiam Half Birthday week 2018.
> 
> A huge thank you to Rux for basically doing my research for me. And listening to me whine.

Liam hated visiting his dad at work; had hated it even before he became a werewolf. And now it was worse. The smells that had made him feel uneasy as a human now clogged his nose and made him want to wretch. Bleach over feces over urine over vomit over blood over infection over death. The beeping of the monitors clashed in his ears, all out of sync with each other, all clamouring, underpinned by the odd long, drawn out tone. “ _Time of death, 6:37pm._ ” 

Then there was the coughing, and the screaming, and the shouting. And the sounds coming from the operating rooms: saws cutting into bone and flesh being sewn back together. Everywhere there were hearts pounding and skipping and murmuring. Feet clacking, wheels squeaking, fingers typing. Talking and laughing. Crying.

And on top of all that, on top of all the things battering his senses, was _the feeling_. It made him itch. Made his hairs stand on end. Made shivers run down his neck and across his back. Hitched his breathing and clenched his gut. Liam didn’t know what it was, not really, but it set him on edge. He blamed all the death. But something in him was screaming danger and he wanted nothing more than to run from the place and never look back.

Unfortunately, “hospitals make me uncomfortable” was not a valid excuse in his mother’s book, so Liam was forced to deliver home cooked food - lovingly prepared by his mom - to his father a few nights a week. He really dreaded the day that an evil supernatural decided to attack at 6:30pm on a Tuesday or Thursday, because he would have to decide between abandoning his friends and facing his mom’s wrath.

He opened the door into the children’s ward (much, much worse than the rest of the hospital for acute werewolf senses) and wandered down the corridor, ears listening out for his dad. He’d almost been thrown out of the hospital one time by a nurse who thought he was some random person off the street snooping about the building, but unluckily his father had caught sight of her marching him out of the ward. Now everyone knew who he was and a perfectly good excuse for not entering the hospital had been wasted.

Gagging and splashing assaulted his ears and Liam quickly held his breath before the smell of vomit could reach his nose, forcing himself to ignore anything else other than the sound and smell of his father, a nifty little trick that Derek had begrudgingly taught him to help him deal with his amped up senses. It’s because of this that Liam didn’t notice the sound of the other boy approaching the open door to his right, or even really see him step out into the hallway. And it’s because of _this_ that he walked straight into him.

The other boy slammed back into the doorframe from the force of their bodies connecting. After a moment of shock - in which a tiny part of Liam noticed the boy’s striking gray-green-blue eyes - Liam had his arms outstretched towards him and an apology on his tongue, but the boy spoke before Liam could.

“Watch where you’re going asshole!”

Liam’s mouth fell open. Then the outrage hit, because this was _not_ his fault. “Hey! You-”

But before he could continue, another voice cut in.

“Theo, I’ve told you to watch your language,” Liam’s dad said, finally appearing and walking down the hallway towards them. “There are kids on this ward.”

“We’re all here to die anyway, who gives a shit if they know their Fs and their Cs,” the boy mumbled, and that’s when Liam noticed the drip stand trailing after the boy, an IV bag attached by a tube to the back of his hand. _Well shit, he’s a patient_.

“Their parents,” his dad said, but it was his _stop pretending to be an idiot, you already know this_ voice, rather than the _l’m mad at you voice_.

“Whatever,” Theo said, looking down and inspecting his hoodie. That is when Liam noticed the red stain covering the boy’s stomach. He looked down at the, now very smushed, container in his hand. _Well shit_.

“Sorry,” Liam said, looking between Theo and his dad.

“Guess it’s cafeteria food for me,” his dad chuckled, but the boy was scowling down at the stain.

“Hey, erm, I can take that home and clean it,” Liam offered, “bring it back in a few days.”

The boy looked up at him, scowl intensifying. “So you can ruin it even more?”

Liam was left gaping again. Any sympathy he had for the boy was quickly vanishing.

“Theo, tone it down,” his dad cut in, but again he wasn’t angry, or put out at the kid’s rudeness. “He’s offering to help, and if I were you, I’d take him up on it. His mom has a secret formula that can get out _anything_.”

“ _Fine_ ,” the boy said, rolling his eyes. “Help me get it off.” And with that he was walking back into the room he had come from, pulling the IV pole behind him. Liam’s dad followed him in and Liam was left hovering by the door.

The kid flopped down onto the bed, but then he tensed up, a gasp leaving his lips. Liam could smell the sharp sting of pain on the boy. It made him take an involuntary step forwards.

“You need more painkillers?” his dad asked.

“Nope,” the boy grit out, opening his eyes and staring at Dr Geyer, who was playing around with the IV tube.

The man hummed, like he didn’t believe the boy. “You’re sister coming by tonight?”

“Mom.”

“Ah,” the doctor nodded, as if this all made perfect sense.

Theo turned his attention to Liam, still stood in the doorway. “Take a fucking picture, you can wank to it later.”

Liam didn't know how to respond to that, so he turned on his heel and went back into the hall, falling back against the wall to wait for his dad and keep the infuriating boy out of his sight. He made Liam’s blood boil. _What a dick_. If they were anywhere else and he didn’t have a tube jammed into him, Liam would have probably punched him by now, not only for the way he was talking to him, but for how he was treating his dad. _Stupid sick people thinking they have a right to make everyone else miserable_.

Liam silently fumed for a while, until he noticed the spoiled food he was still clutching. He wandered down to the nurse’s station and threw it into the bin with more force than strictly necessary. The sad thing was, it took the edge off his anger... slightly anyway.

“Don’t mind Theo, sweety.” Liam jumped at the voice. He turned to find a nurse sat hidden behind the desk. “Kid’s going through some shit.”

“Doesn’t mean he has to take it out on everyone else,” Liam mumbled, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting to let the dickhead off that easily.

“I’d like to see you deal with it better,” she said, with a disapproving pout. Liam opened his mouth to argue back, but a firm hand on his shoulder cut him off.

“Trina, don’t go picking up the kid’s language,” Liam’s dad joked.

“Slip of the tongue,” the woman said with a wink, before turning back to her computer screen.

Liam’s dad turned him with the hand on his shoulder, moving them both back down the hall. They walked past Theo’s room, and Liam’s eyes were drawn inside. Theo was laid back on the bed, his eyes closed and body tense once again. Liam’s heightened senses could pick out the strain around the boy’s eyes, he could hear the difficulty in his breathing and the strange labouring of his heart.

But within two steps Liam could no longer see the boy, and he had an armful of clothing pressed against his chest.

“Well now’s as good a time as any to learn your mother’s witchcraft,” his dad said with a grin. “Let me know the secret formula. I’ll know you just got your mom to do it if you can’t tell me it when I get back.”

“Pretty sure she buys it from the store.”

“Then tell me the brand name!”

***

Two days later, Liam was walking back through the hospital corridors, bag of food in one hand, bag of clothing in the other. And _yes_ , he had removed the stains himself.

He found his dad easily this time, stood by the nurses’ station looking over charts. He had a frown on his face, and Liam didn’t need to be able to read chemosignals to know that whatever he was looking at, it wasn’t good news. Liam sighed. He didn’t know how anyone was able to do this job.

“Hey dad,” he said, sliding against the desk to lean next to his father. “Food’s here.”

“Hey kid,” his dad said, smile lighting up his face. Liam could see through it though. “That’s just what I need.”

“You’ll be extra pleased to hear it’s your favourite then.” Liam held the bag out to him. Now the smile turned less strained as his father moved to grab it. Liam pulled it back at the last second. “Now promise me you won’t go wolfing it down. I heard heartburn’s a pain.”

His dad laughed, a proper one, and lunged at the food, pulling it protectively to his chest. “I’ll savour every bite.”

“I’ve got those clothes for the grumpy kid too,” Liam said, placing the remaining bag onto the desk.

“Do I look like a delivery man? Give it back yourself.”

“Dad, c’mon! I cleaned the clothes, and brought you food!”

“Kid’s not gonna bite Liam-”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Liam mumbled.

“- plus he could probably do with some conversation that isn’t with me or one of the nurses.”

Liam let out a great sigh. “ _Fine!_ ” And with that he grabbed the bag and took off to the boy’s room.

He peered inside, letting out a sigh of relief when he saw Theo’s face lax in sleep. He tiptoed in and moved towards the set of drawers opposite the bed. He tried to pull out the hoodie, cringing as the bag rustled.

“It’s not my birthday.”

Liam froze. He slowly turned around to find Theo’s eyes open.

“What?” he asked, because really, how else was he supposed to respond?

“It’s not my birthday yet.”

“Oooookay. And what’s that got to do with me?”

“It’s not time for my present.”

“Oh, this isn’t a present,” Liam said, holding up the bag of clothes.

“Not that.”

“Dude, you’re making no sense,” Liam grumbled, turning around again and taking out the hoodie. He was about to dump it on top of the drawers, but couldn’t bring himself to leave it in a heap after all the effort he’d made to clean it. So he carefully folded it instead.

“You.”

Liam sighed and turned round once again. “What?” But the boy just looked back at him blearily. “Seriously, you’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met,” Liam thought of Stiles and Derek, “and I hang around with weirdos everyday.”

“You don’t need to dance yet.”

“Why would I be dancing?”

But instead of giving an answer, Theo started doing a weird hybrid of singing and humming. Liam stood staring at the other boy, who was still laid in bed. But then he realised what the song was. _The stripping song_. And suddenly Liam could feel himself turning red, and he was throwing the hoodie onto the sideboard and fleeing the room, as Theo cackled behind him.

He almost ran into that damned nurse.

“Umph, watch it there sweety!” she exclaimed, grabbing hold of his shoulders. “What’s got you charging around? You’ll bulldoze the patients. _Again_.”

Liam glanced over his shoulder into Theo’s room.

“Ah,” she said, nodding her head. “Don’t mind him, he’s high as a kite right now.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Pain meds dear, he’s on the strong ones. Thought I was the Easter Bunny earlier.”

“Oh, right,” Liam breathed out in relief.

“Can’t get a lot of sense out of him when he’s on them, poor kid.”

***

Liam had never thought you could pity someone and want to punch them at the same time. But apparently he could. That night, as he waited for sleep to take hold, he daydreamed about breaking Theo’s nose. And pulling his pain from him.

He wondered what it would feel like… punching Theo, _obviously_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I be writing more WIPs? No. Should I be posting them? Definitely not. Am I? Hell yeah! 
> 
> (I’m sorry)
> 
> Come shout at me on Tumblr, y’know, to finish off all the other stuff, and this…


	2. Chapter 2

Four days later, Liam was walking back through the hospital corridors. This time, he wasn’t only listening out for his dad, but also a certain teenager. He _really_ wasn’t in the mood for Theo’s attitude (aggressive _or_ flirtatious).

He thought he’d safely made it without bumping into the other boy, having located his dad once again at the nurses’ station, and made it out if the children’s ward without incident. There was a hint of a skip to his step as he walked down the hallway to the elevators. For a moment at least.

" _Fuck_.”

Liam knew that voice. He paused. The pained expletive had come from a corridor ahead that branched off the one Liam had been strolling down.

He considered continuing down the hallway; the lifts were _so close_. He could leave this place in a good mood, rather than pissed off or embarrassed. Theo just… got to him. And he’d had a miserable day already.

_Would human ears have even heard what Theo said?_

So he hurriedly passed the junction of the corridor that Theo was stood down. But he was brought to a standstill by another gasp that came from the boy and the erratic galloping of his heart. _Shit_.

Liam took a few steps back and peered down the corridor.

Theo was slumped against the wall, his back to Liam. He was clutching his drip stand so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. Liam sniffed, the stench of pain like a punch to the gut. That was it, he jogged the short distance down the hall, coming to a stop just behind the other boy.

“Theo?”

“Fuck off,” Theo said in a hissed puff of breath.

But Liam wouldn't be that easily put off. “Dude, what’s wrong?” He said, moving around to Theo’s side.

Theo laughed, a hollow, wretched thing. “I’m dying.”

And with that, Theo had once again thrown Liam for a loop. “Like… right now?” He asked, eyeing Theo worriedly, hand raised towards him. Theo took deeps breaths, the hand that wasn’t clutching the stand pressed to his chest.

“Don’t worry short-stuff, you don’t need to do the last rites just yet,” Theo chuckled, but Liam could feel the pain radiating off him. All his senses were telling him that he needed to get Theo back to the ward. So he ignored Theo’s words and reached towards him.

“C’mon, you need to get back." 

But Theo flinched away. “Don’t touch me!”

Liam froze, shocked.

“Just fuck off,” Theo wheezed. “Go get your brownie points somewhere else. I don’t need your help.”

“I’m not gonna leave you like this!”

Theo straightened up and glared at him. “Take your fucking hero complex where it’s wanted. I’m fine,” he growled.

In that moment Liam - once again - wanted to punch Theo, or take his pain, or turn around and leave him to suffer for the sake of his pride.

But Liam didn’t do any of that. For one, something in him recognised the chemosignals that poured from the other boy. He could taste them in the air, the sting that came when a person’s ego was crippled. The burn of righteous hatred and fury, and the need to lash out that came with it. They were the same as when his IED struck, and Liam knew what it was like to hate someone just for being near him when he felt small.

For another, Theo took a step from him, but promptly bent over with a cry and threw up over the wall and floor.

Liam rushed forwards and grabbed the other boy, holding him up as his legs have way.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Theo spat. He tried to push Liam away from him, but his movements were weak and sluggish, and Liam just pulled him closer. Theo whimpered.

If he knew how, Liam would have pulled the pain from Theo’s body. He felt it, like a phantom feeling that ghosted over his skin that set his jaw aching. But he didn’t know what to do, and a small part of him questioned how he’d explain it if he did.

So he gently lifted the other boy into his arms, momentarily shocked at how light he was. Theo groaned, his head lolling against Liam, hand moving to grip Liam’s t-shirt, and eyes scrunched tightly closed.

Liam took a step before remembering the drip stand. He moved towards it and shifted Theo slightly so he could take one hand from under him and quickly unhook the IV bag and place it on Theo’s belly.

Theo groaned as he was jostled. “Fuck you,” he murmured against Liam’s shoulder.

“You’re gonna have to come up with more imaginative insults, these are getting pathetic,” Liam said, wrapping his arm beneath Theo’s legs again and moving his other to hold Theo’s torso against him.

“Well that’s the first come-back you’ve made, so I’m still winning.”

Liam hurried down the corridor, moving as smoothly as he could so as not to jostle Theo again.

“Can’t exactly be mean to a dying person can I?”

Theo laughed. “We have less time to take revenge, you should _only_ insult dying people.”

“I think my dad would have something to say about that,” Liam said as he turned to use his back to push open the door to the children’s ward.

“You’re dad’s a drip.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“There we go!”

“Hey can we get some help over here!” Liam shouted, ignoring the twist of Theo’s pained smile.

Trina came running up to them and Theo looked up at her with that smile still plastered to his face. “I left a little present for the cleaners, T. Cleanup on aisle three.” He laughed, the sound turning into a gasp.

“Get him in here!” She said, bustling Liam into Theo’s room and motioning to the bed as she ran around it to the monitors at the other side. She pressed a button and an alarm rang, whilst Liam set Theo down as gently as he could.

"What stupid thing have you been doing this time?” She scolded, lifting the IV bag up to Liam. “Hold this up.”

She lifted Theo’s top and began attaching things to his chest, and an irregular beat joined the sound of the alarm.

“Just escaping this hellhole for a bit,” Theo replied, staring up at the ceiling.

“Stupid boy!” Trina snapped back, but then other people were running into the room and the IV bag was being snatched out of Liam’s hands and he was being bustled out of the room. He stood in the doorway, watching as the doctors and nurses moved around Theo, shouting instructions and jabbing Theo with needles, until hands wrapped around Liam’s upper arms and moved him with steady force away from the room and down the corridor. He could still hear everything, including Theo’s soft sigh as he drifted into unconsciousness.

“What happened to him?”

“Sorry sweetie, I can’t tell you that,” Trina replied. He hadn’t even noticed that it was her that had pulled him away. “But your dad’ll take good care of him.” Liam looked at her, eyes wide. He’d not noticed his dad either.

“You should go on home now. I’ll let your dad know you left,” Trina said, her voice soft and caring, but leaving no room for argument. Liam nodded slowly, moving towards the exit.

He walked through the hospital, but barely paid any attention to his surroundings, instead his ears strained to hear what was happening in Theo’s room. He didn’t understand half of what was being said, but he could tell from their tone that the doctors were concerned. And then he heard something that he _did_ understand.

“See if we can get him moved up the list any further. He needs that transplant now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone who has commented and kudosed - you guys are the best! Special thanks to @manonlemelon whose comments helped me remember canon and gave me Plot Ideas...
> 
> I've got a heck of a lot going on right now, so I don't know when I'll next be updating anything, possibly not for at least a couple of weeks. I'll try to get back to my older fics who are sitting with half finished chapters looking at me pointedly every time I open my docs. *oh, the guilt I feel*
> 
> Also, I've noticed that I _really_ have a thing for italics... Is it me or is it the characters? I'm not quite sure XD
> 
> Apparently I also have a thing for Theo calling out Liam’s hero complex and saying he wants nothing to do with it. Maybe my stories are pretty much all the same lol!
> 
> Come shout at me on Tumblr! @autumnleavessoaring


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry...

The words rattled in Liam’s head. _He needs that transplant now_. _He needs that transplant now. Needs transplant now. Transplant now..._ Now _._

Becoming a werewolf had made death become, well, a reality. Before, dying had seemed far off, so far that it seemed almost impossible. Liam, his friends, his family, they had all been invincible. But then everything changed, and Liam had almost died. Multiple times. But he wasn’t used to this… inevitability. Helplessness. He had never thought of death as something that was slow, that could run just behind you, ready to overtake at any moment. Death to Liam was sudden, but something you could fight against. There was always hope that _someone_ could save him, even if he couldn’t save himself. And if not… well dying would just happen. Between one breath and the next. Over.

Liam was beginning to think that Theo had been dying for a long time. Maybe forever.

Of course, Liam _did_ know that death wasn’t always quick. But the reality of someone as young as him being drained of their life, day by day, like sand trickling out of a timer? It had been incomprehensible. Until now.

But why should he care? He didn’t know Theo. And he had much more important things to worry about, like controlling himself on a full moon, handling his IED, and fighting whoever threatened his friends, his family, his pack.

And yet…

***

“GET OUT!”

Liam winced as he heard something smash against a wall, the sound a sharp strike to his eardrums. Moving further into the children’s ward he wondered whether he would ever become accustomed to his enhanced senses, before realising that the commotion was coming from Theo’s room.

He saw his dad run into the room as a flustered woman swiftly exited.

“I told you,” Trina sang from behind the nurses’ station. The other woman sighed.

“I couldn't not give it a go.”

“That boy wants no pity, it sets him off. And who’s gonna have to deal with his tantrum now, hmmmmm? Me.”

But Liam’s attention was taken away from the two women by the once again raised voice coming from Theo’s room.

“You act like being pushed in a wheelchair around the set of a movie I’ll never live to see is gonna have made my life worth living! News flash: one day isn’t gonna make up for dying before I’m eighteen, or for how shitty my pathetic excuse for a life has been!”

“That's not what we’re saying Theo.”

“But she has the audacity to come in here and ask me what my _dream_ is. Like I'm on death row and it’s my last fucking meal! Rubbing it in my face that there’s no hope so best have one day where I actually get to do something that doesn't royally suck before I'm trapped in here being cut open, doped up and waiting to _FUCKING DIE_ again!”

“ _THEO!_ _Keep your voice down!_ ” Liam’s dad shouted, and Liam was left aghast. His dad would never raise his voice like that at a patient.

But Theo laughed, and it was so cold, making Liam shiver. “That's all you want, for me to die quietly and thank you for it, like a good little boy. Well you get your wish, I'm done fighting. There's no use anyway. You failed Geyer.”

“Theo-”

“Get the fuck out of my room.” These last words were quiet, but full of vehemence, the scents coming from the room wreaking of so much hatred that Liam felt his stomach drop.

And then his dad was running into the corridor and whipping past him, and Liam heard him enter another room and quietly close the door behind him, but his sobs were loud in Liam’s ears, just as his shame was heavy in Liam’s nose.

And Liam felt the bitter burn of anger flood into his veins, rage boiling up within him. That someone could do that to his dad, _a man who gave everything to help other people-_

His hands curled into fists as he stepped towards the open door to Theo’s room, catching a glimpse of the boy sat in his bed, staring at the wall. But other than that, Liam could sense nothing, as if Theo had somehow tamped down on all his emotions, cutting them off into nothingness. No anger, or sadness, or even the slightest amount of remorse… To Liam that made it worse, and it was all he could do to step away from the room and flee the hospital, sprinting into the woods to take his anger out on the trees.

Theo was a cold and ruthless little brat, but Liam knew his father would mourn his death like all the others. More now, because of Theo’s words, because of the blame Theo had placed on him, and in Liam's eyes nothing could justify that.

Of course, he hadn't seen the tear that had fallen down Theo’s cheek when Dr Geyer ran from his room, or sensed the utter hopeless dread that filled the boy before he smothered that terrible feeling within him.

Theo Raeken had decided long ago that he had shed enough tears over his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back bitches! ;-) Sorry for the silence, life has been kind of mental recently, but here's a short chapter for you... When will I update again? I have no idea... *sigh*
> 
> Sooooo I felt like Liam was getting a bit too close to Theo and decided to throw a spanner in the works (I promise this will become a Thiam fic eventually haha!)
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who has commented and kudosed! I love your reactions, and you have no idea how excited I get when I see a notification! I can't tell you how much I appreciate every single comment ♥️♥️♥️
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the angst!
> 
> Much love,  
> Autumn / Lauren


End file.
